


The World's Not Waiting

by orangesofsymmetry



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Established Relationship, M/M, hey look at that no angst, this is quite gory so if you're not into that this isn't for you i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangesofsymmetry/pseuds/orangesofsymmetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan's not sure what to say, though he doesn't quite think that that's a bad thing. It's not like anyone teaches you how to alleviate tension during a zombie apocalypse, so Dan thinks he's doing pretty well in the circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World's Not Waiting

The news is vaguely disturbing; a new “superbug” has decided to have a shot at being the next epidemic, and apparently this time there’s no cure. It would be distressing, but after last time (the "outbreak" of the plague was pretty damn pathetic for all of the hype) everyone’s only slightly wary as opposed to bricking it.  
  
Besides, Madonna is doing… something bad (according to the Daily Mail at least) and there’s a band of high pressure heading straight towards the UK. There’s a lot more pressing issues to worry about, for example where Dan’s going to get a disposable barbeque now that everyone wants one and whether he’s willing to tempt fate enough to actually go ahead with the purchase.  
  
Dan stares at the screen of his television, sips his (lukewarm, goddamn) tea and ponders the meaning of life. There’s a damn lot of answers to that question (42, survival, procreation, love), a Goddamn lot of answers that he can’t even sink his teeth into.  
  
He sits and stares at the notepad in front of him and wonders if he’ll ever actually, y’know, do his job. Which is making videos. Yeah, he should be doing that. He doesn’t. Instead, he flicks open his laptop, lurks on Youtube for a while and curses himself for not making that video first, like shit. He doesn’t do anything about it though; he just looks dejectedly at the camera in the corner, thinks of scripts that are already written and wonders if that’s it. There’s a strong chance that after five years and uncountable shitty videos he’s wrung himself out for now. Maybe he needs a break. He can go on hiatus for a bit, right? He can have a nice holiday, drink some cocktails, make out with Phil and rejuvenate for a while. Get back to his roots, think of some new content, post it and, voila, he’s the most subscribed in Youtube history and Pewdiepie can suck it. Easy.

It’s not like he’d be totally abandoning his viewers; he’s got a Twitter for fuck’s sake, and he’s never off Tumblr, so, really, how hard could it be?  
  
He’s just saying, it would be really nice to have a break.  
  
Yeah. Apart from a break from Youtube would mean that he wouldn’t be stressed, and therefore wouldn’t be moping and then he’d have no sob story. You need a sob story to be famous, it’s a fact of life. Either that or nudes, but c’mon, no one wants to see that. So, really, he’s just cementing his fame. He’s a fucking martyr.  
  
So, there you have it. He definitely has plenty more pressing issues than an outbreak of a vaguely threatening disease.

He goes back to Youtube and plans his and Phil’s coming out video in his head.  
  
**  
  
Despite the crushing lack of faith that the inhabitants of the UK may have toward their government, they actually weren’t lying about this one.  
  
Vitadificabis, the disease that Dan, as well as thousands of others, disregarded is potentially one of the scariest things to come from the 21st Century (please note that Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake wore double denim to the VMAs in the very same century, which was terrifying in its own special way). It is important to know now what the disease really is.  
  
Vitadificabis, a strange fusion of vita and ædificabis (both Latin, meaning life and build) was developed as a mind control drug, mainly to treat anger and subdue national enemies. Through a sick twist of fate, the hopeful remedy isolated the source of anger in its subjects and therefore caused uncontrollable rage.  
  
The problem with this, apart from the handful of really angry things that had tried to claw their way out of the lab, was that the drug was in clinical testing, i.e., human testing, so instead of ridiculously angry mice the researchers had to deal with six extremely angry humans.  
  
By some miracle of nature, no one died that evening. No; it wasn’t until the next morning that the one subject whose life had not been terminated after the utter failings of the experiment went on a murderous rampage and killed three people and infected twelve others. Had the lab not been in a high security military base, then much of England would already have been infected. But, luckily enough, the lab was. Instead what happened was a slow trickle of infection spreading to secluded villages in the Highlands, which were then quarantined. It was all under control.  
  
That was, until the media caught the scent of trouble-a-brewing and suddenly it was carnage again. But this time, there was a lot less blood but a lot more fear and flashing lights. Though they insisted there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of, it would all be resolved soon, the media lapped up scared eye witness accounts instead and published stories of bloodshed.  
  
They weren’t too far off, but the researchers didn’t want anyone to know that.  
  
And then some very powerful being must have thought,  _fuck it_ , because a journalist got infected.

* * *

 

Dan’s television goes black. The screen wobbles a bit and then cuts to the BBC logo. There’s maybe fourteen seconds of silence and then a metallic beeping. The beeping cuts out and a distinctly cold female voice recites:  
  
“This is the BBC transmitting from London. Normal programming has been suspended.”  
  
Eerie silence follows. Dan shudders.  
  
The voice starts up again, screen switching to the WHO logo.  
  
“Attention. Attention.” A pause. “This is an emergency broadcast alert. The government has issued a code red warning concerning the health of this nation. The estimated severity of outbreak of Vitadificabis is severe. Effects will be imminent.” A longer break this time, and Dan calls Phil shakily.  
  
“Please stay in your home or building. Isolate external water and gas supplies and fill up containers with water. Close all windows and doors. Proceed to lowest point of the building with a radio, batteries, food, water, blankets and a first aid kit. Once at the lowest point remain there and do not leave unless instructed to by local radio broadcasts. Turn on radio and follow instructions given. Phones will be temporarily cut off to prioritise health and military communications. Follow these instruction immediately to increase your chances of survival and decrease risk of infection.”  
  
The message repeats, still as robotic as before. Dan feels Phil stood behind him and then the padding of feet to the kitchen. He hears the sound of Phil putting the latch on the front door, shutting the kitchen window, and turning the taps on.  
  
The BBC News opening stirs up the silence and Dan turns his attention back to the television, but instead of Darren Jordan reading mechanically from the auto-cue it’s the same clips that they usually use for blizzards or bouts of irrationally heavy winds; the shots of the departures board with every flight  _CANCELLED_. But there’s no snow. The video flutters; cuts to live footage of zombies tearing each other apart. The headline reads:  _BRITAIN QUARANTINED_.

* * *

 

Jennifer Smith was good at her job; she got good stories and went to high risk places and got paid well enough to have a nice, costly flat in central London. In this nice, costly flat lived her partner of three years, Annabelle Jackson, who hated her job.  
  
These two, though unlikely, started the loss of control of the greatest epidemic the world has ever seen.  
  
Before Jennifer it wasn’t previously known that you could be a carrier of Vitadificabis, though when Jennifer contracted the disease it became quickly apparent that you could be. However, nobody noticed that Jennifer was ill at all.  
  
As a carrier, Jennifer experienced no symptoms of the disease except from a slight, nagging uncomfortable sensation that she put down to the long train journey from Scotland to London. (She’d been sat across from two teenagers who were dead set on listening to Colplay's full discography, can you blame her?)  
  
This goes exactly where you’d expect: Jennifer and Annabelle did the typical, “you’re home!” platform snog that everyone that’s single hates and your gran thinks is cute and then Annabelle was going all zombie and ripping out Jennifer’s guts. Lots of running and screaming ensued, and still the conductor was pissed about people jumping the turnstiles until someone ate his intestines.  
  
And that is how this all started.

* * *

 

There’s riots, but that’s to be expected. You can’t order a nation inside, even if it’ll save their life. It’s how it is.  
  
So: there’s riots. Dan isn’t sure what they want to achieve, other than widespread fear. It’s not like there’s not enough of that already. There’s crazed screaming and chants of, “let us out, let us out!” as if it’s going to make France go, “oh we’ve been frenemies for a while now and suddenly you’ve got a seriously contagious disease with no cure? Sure! Come in!” Dan just doesn’t see the point.  
  
The upstairs neighbours arrive about fifteen minutes into the riot. Arrive is probably a euphemism; Alex hammers frantically against the door while Nadia begs for them to let them in until they do, and then they sit panting on the welcome mat. It’s not dignified, but then again Dan didn’t expect it to be. At least they’re not covered in blood, right? Right?

Dan doesn’t question their presence; life has gone to shit and people are actually honest-to-God dying on their doorsteps, so he reckons they probably just want to be around some familiar faces. Phil seems to feel the same about the situation.

Besides, it’s not like they haven’t grown pretty close in the year that he and Phil have been living next door to them. The duo showing up unannounced it basically the status quo.  
  
They sit in shell-shocked silence for a while: Dan gnawing on a hangnail, Phil staring at him gently, tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth and Nadia and Alex watching the news coverage from the sofa. No one want to say anything.  
  
The riot continues outside until it doesn’t. The chants stop gradually, then the screaming starts. Then the silence.  
  
The street outside is oddly quiet. There is no traffic moving, no engines roaring, no blazing horns or screams of sirens. Silence. An eerie, disturbing silence and Dan's stomach is churning. He can't hear the footsteps of pedestrians, or their quick phone conversations, just quiet.  
  
Everyone in the room is tense and Dan can hear the slow, steady  _fft fft fft_  of his pulse in his ears.  
  
By midnight it’s crushingly obvious: they’re not getting out of this alive.

* * *

 

The best thing to do in preparation for a zombie apocalypse is to watch Mean Girls. Obviously. Either that or you’re all escapists, and it’s the first DVD you saw and you’re only watching it so that you don’t have to think about how your internal organs will probably be a zombie’s chewtoy very soon.  
  
Besides, Phil loves the film (he can quote most of it, how sad is that?) and it keeps the rest of their minds’ fairly occupied, in a sort of mindless way. It’s better than nothing.  
  
The film has just gotten to the point in which Cady is vomiting over Aaron Samuel’s shoes when there’s the sounds next door.  
  
It’s the shuffling sounds from downstairs that make Dan mute the television, and then there’s grunts, a bloodcurdling scream and then a wet tearing sound. Some more thumds. A growl.  
  
Very slowly, Nadia stands up and switches off the TV. “I think we should move.” She says very carefully, shiftily.  
  
They leap into action.  
  
Dan grabs his bag from the coatrack in the kitchen and starts shoving tins from the cupboards into it. Clears his mind, thinks survival only. He knows that fresh food will be of no use (it rots, he’s watched enough Bear Grylls to know that). He shoves dried foods into the bag, fruits and packaged carbohydrates because that's what they'd do in Hollywood, right? He finds the matches, the first aid kit and right at the last minute the bottle of whisky because it'll take the edge off later when they need it and they always drink it in the films. He places the bottled water from the fridge into the bag and tests the weight.  
  
It’s ridiculously heavy.  
  
Huh. He’ll take turns with Phil.  
  
Alex seems to be on weapons duty. So far she’s managed to produce:

  1. A cricket bat;
  2. Some sort of staff (“for hitting things, feel how heavy it is!
  3. And a frying pan.



The frying pan, apparently, is Dan’s. Dan stares at it in repulse. "A frying pan? A fucking frying pan? The fuck do you take me for, a zombie slaying housewife? Fuck me."  
  
Phil very pointedly ignores Dan. “We’ve got a toolbox somewhere, right? Do we have a hammer or something?” He pauses for a good moments. “I don’t know, really. What do they always have in the films?”  
  
“A lighter?” Nadia suggests.  
  
“A hot guy?”  
  
Everyone looks at Dan, who grumbles and scrambles to find a lighter in the pocket of her jeans.  
  
“I should have never replied to your tweet.” Phil says dejectedly, propping himself up on the kitchen cabinets.

“You love me really.” Dan says and Phil shakes his head violently, but he still leans in and kisses him gently, almost as a farewell. Which, Dan reckons, if they’re met with the same fate as poor Mrs McGregor from downstairs, it kind of is. He gulps.

There’s some more thuds from next door and then some gurgling sounds. Footsteps. It suddenly occurs to them that they really don’t have time for this.  
  
Nadia starts duct taping a knife to the end of a broom. Alex looks at herself in the mirror. Phil ties his laces and Dan realises that he really should get out of his pajamas.

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: this is a very, very lose adaption of an old fic that i wrote maybe a year ago? it wasn't very good, anyway, and went under the name Can't You See It's Over  
> everything in this is 100% mine and if you recognise it, it's probably because it's reworked from that fic!!  
> title is a shortened fall out boy song title  
> thanks for reading pals!!!


End file.
